Inserting F5 LTM in a Citrix environment

Yes. I've done that.

Citrix Web Interface can be directly replaced with APM. It's supported OOTB. You COULD do it yourself too, in much the same way. A lot of the stuff in the APM solution is driven by javascript talking to the XML Brokers via the LTM. However it would be a lot of work. And you'd need to support it yourself instead of having fun with the APM code that F5 have slaved over for you :)

The XML broker itself can't really be easily replaced with LTM. It needs to talk too deeply into Citrix itself to know where apps are running, kickoff new apps etc. But the web interface is certainly one that can be replaced.

H

Hi Dr. Jaouad,

Functions replaceable: NetScalers functions (Majority of), Web Interface, StoreFront.

Controller/Broker remains required, as do the workers.

There's various implementations you can do with Citrix and F5 APM.

• You can replace StoreFront (SF)/Web Interface (WI) with a Webtop that brokers the applications and proxies the ICA connections.
• You can process authentication on APM as a gateway, presenting the SF/WI after.
• You can even present the SF/WI as an icon from the Webtop.

I believe there may be other combinations (I'm not natively a citrix person, just know from what I've learn with implementations).

Here's the deployment guide that is well worth a read, it certainly covers off the first two points.

https://f5.com/solutions/deployment-guides/citrix-xenapp-or-xendesktop-release-candidate-big

Also, the third party product implementation guides (for latest 11.6.0, but I find they can be referred): https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_apm/manuals/product/apm-third-party-integration-implementations-11-6-0.html

Hope they help.

Thanks but is it worth the effort? My thinking is that LTM can be used to replace the Citrix load balancing. Did that?

We currently dynamically display the Citrix applications on our Web top page After APM authentication. But I was thinking about replacing other functionality like the web interface. If I have LTM and APM do I still need the Web interface or xml broker Citrix functions?

You need the XML Broker because the javascript talks to the XML Broker (Via APM/LTM). The web interface can go, because you don't need it (You can just use the APM with the webtop you already have).

H